


Danny Castellano Is My Baby Daddy.

by leftoflovely



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftoflovely/pseuds/leftoflovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first morning that Mindy throws up, she blames it on stress. There's a lot to deal with, after all- she has to see her ex-not-boyfriend every day, Peter brings in food that smells like rotting fish and her period is officially MIA.<br/>After two weeks and the discovery of a barely-used birth control pack from January, Mindy doesn't think she can blame it on stress anymore. </p><p>Written before the s2 finale, spoilers and canon divergence from 2 x 18 "Girl Crush"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first morning that Mindy throws up, she blames it on stress.

There's a lot to deal with, after all. Not only does she have to see Danny every day, but she has to see his new girlfriend as well. Peter's sister (Susan? Sally?) stops by the office with annoying regularity and with no real purpose other than to giggle loudly and leave lipstick smears on Danny's neck. Seeing him already leaves her feeling like someone punched her in the stomach, but watching him with another woman makes her want to crawl under her desk with a jumbo pack of sour straws and a bottle of wine and never, ever come out.

She misses Danny with a tangible ache, and she never knows how to handle the pain. She ignores it, mostly- like when he reaches past her in the mornings to get a chart, and she can smell his soap and skin and it makes her stomach clench but she turns around, closes her door and tries not to cry.

Being dumped by her not-boyfriend has turned her into an emotionally fragile 16-year-old stuck in a 31-year-old body and that, Mindy reasons, is enough to make anyone sick.

 

The third morning that Mindy throws up, she blames it on Peter.

He brings in a box of leftovers for lunch that reeks of rotting fish, and she's running for the bathroom before he even makes it to the fridge.

Peter comes into her office just before lunch, and she's resting her head on her desk, trying to think of anything besides the fact that her stomach's reenacting a scene from The Perfect Storm.

"Peter, if you bring that box of nastiness in here, I will not apologize for barfing on you," she says, trying to breathe between waves of nausea.

"What is wrong with you? It's just Caesar salad!"

Mindy groans and Peter holds up his hands, warding off any projectile attack.

"Calm down, Linda Blair, I left it in the break room. What's wrong with you?"

"I'm dying." She stretches out the 'y' for effect, and lifts her head to see Peter staring at her, unamused.

She drops her head back to the desk.

"Or I have the flu. But I'm probably dying."

"Go home. If you get our patients sick, we'll have a bunch of cranky pregnant women with one more reason to defect to the midwives."

Mindy sighs at that, and looks past Peter, resting her cheek on her hand.

"Maybe this is the universe punishing me for Deslaurier. I had all that sweet midwife lovin', no strings attached, and I gave it up. And for what, Peter? To get my heart broken by Danny Castellano, using the lamest excuse in the book? 'I don't want to lose you?' Really? More like 'I don't want to miss out on hot redheads.' "

Peter winces at the mention of his sister.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just bitter, and I..." She stops, face screwed up to keep herself from throwing up.

Peter places his hands on either side of her face and looks into her eyes.

"You are batshit crazy, heartbroken and contagious. Go home or else I'm quarantining you in this office for the next week."

 

The fifth morning that Mindy throws up, she blames it on the fact that she can't seem to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth.

She's hunting for mints to combat the taste that's still stuck in her mouth, even after three rounds of mouthwash and there, nestled next to a battered roll of Lifesavers, is her birth control.

"Oh, shit."

Her voice echoes in the empty bathroom, and she tries to remember the last time she took it. It's at least a month old- in the haze of her break up with Danny, she never filled a new one.

Mindy opens the compact. Only a week's worth of pills are punched out- the week before California, before the conference, before Danny kissed her on an airplane. In the rush of everything, she'd just stopped taking them.

Mindy Lahiri does not forget about birth control, and before Danny, she'd only gone sans-condoms once, with Casey, after they were engaged. She was an OB-GYN, for crying out loud- she of all people knew the intricacies of contraception. One week of secretly dating Danny Castellano, and every ounce of common sense and medical knowledge she possessed flew out the window.

 _This is not happening_ , Mindy thinks to herself.

Maybe it wasn't happening. Her period was a no-show last month, but that could be caused by dozens of things- she'd certainly been under enough stress lately. The throwing up really could just be the flu. There was no way of knowing for sure, and it wasn't like she was some fertile 21-year-old-- women in their thirties didn't just get pregnant.

Mindy stares at her reflection in the mirror-- she looks clammy, her hair is a wreck and the bags under her eyes remind her of the photo of Morgan's grandma he taped to his computer. Weren't pregnant women supposed to glow? To radiate beauty?

The only thing she was radiating was body odor and exhaustion.

"Give it a week, Lahiri. You'll get better and feel stupid you even thought this was a possibility."

 

A week later, and Mindy's lost count of the number of times she's puked and no longer has anything to blame it on, besides that one possibility she's adamantly not thinking about.

She goes back to work and she's better at concealing her trips to the bathroom. She puts on a lot of powder to hide the bags and her clammy complexion. Ironically, Danny's fling with Sally (now apparently on the rocks- she hasn't seen lipstick on him all week) provides enough distraction that nobody in the office has noticed the changes in her.

So they don't notice when she leaves work an hour early to go buy a pregnancy test on the opposite side of town.

She feels conspicuous with it in her purse and the entire subway ride home, she spins elaborate scenarios in her head about seeing someone she knows and dropping her bag, pregnancy exposed to the world. She's so busy clutching her bag closed that she nearly misses her stop.

 

In her bathroom she waits an extra minute, just to be sure, and turns over the test.

Her hands are shaking when she puts the stick down on the sink and stares at her reflection. Her eyes flicker down to her stomach, and she tries to breathe through the tsunami of emotions that are crashing through her.

"I am pregnant. I am pregnant and Danny...

Danny Castellano is my baby daddy."

 

________________________________________________________________

 

Across town, Danny Castellano knocks on Mindy's office door. The practice is empty, and Mindy hasn't come out of her office all afternoon. Not that he's noticed, at least, and try as he might, Danny still notices Mindy more than anyone else in his life. He definitely notices her more than he noticed Sally, a fact that lead to loud arguments and slammed doors in his apartment this week. Well, that and the fact that he'd left out the small detail about sleeping with Mindy two weeks before he started dating Sally. How long would he and Sally have lasted if she hadn't found Mindy's earrings on the floor?

 

_She'd been looking for her sock one minute and the next it was accusatory stares and "What are these? Danny, these aren't mine.These aren't my earrings, oh my God are you sleeping with someone else?"_

_He didn't even try to think of an excuse._

_"They're Mindy's. We... I... we were together._

_"That doctor at your practice? The one you're always staring at? You slept with her? When, Danny?"_

_"Like... January." Danny's waiting for her to figure it out, waiting for her to say it._

_"So, I'm the rebound."_

_"No, you're..."_   
_"Peter told me, he told me you were hung up on someone else, but I didn't believe him. Stupid, stupid me, believing that you'd have the decency to at least let me know what I am. But that's the sad thing, Danny, is because the way you watch her, I'm not even a rebound. I'm nothing."_

_"Sally, I just... it's complicated, okay? But we're broken up, we never..." Danny's running his hands through his hair, so visibly uncomfortable with this confrontation he looks like he might bolt down the fire escape._

_"What? Never what?"_

_"I never cheated on you."_

_Sally shakes her head, a bitter smile on her face and tears hovering in her eyes._

_"No, Danny, you led me on. You let me believe in a possibility that was never going to happen, and that feels worse. Because I never had a chance. I don't know how long you were with her, but whatever happened isn't over."_

_"It is, okay? We broke up, I broke up with her. We've barely even talked." His chest constricts at the thought of how little he's talked to Mindy lately, how little he's heard her laugh._

_"Maybe not, but I see the way you look at her. I tried to ignore it, you know? I thought you were just a nice guy, that you were friends with a lot of girls, but you're not nice, Danny. Nice guys don't date girls when they're in love with someone else."_

_He shakes his head-- no one said anything about love, he definitely doesn't love Mindy-- but when he opens his mouth, he can't get the words out._

_"Yea. That's what I thought."_

_And she's gone- grabbing her things and slamming the door-- and Danny doesn't feel anything. The woman he dated for the past six weeks just broke up with him, and all he can think about is that he can't remember the last time he heard Mindy laugh._

_When he got to the practice the next morning, he was expecting Peter's wrath. What he didn't know how to handle was his silence._

_Peter was waiting for him in his office, and he didn't yell, or call Danny an asshole, or punch him-- all three of which Danny knew he deserved. Peter had stared at him for a good five minutes, then leaned over and verbally dropkicked Danny in the chest, all without raising his voice or shaking his fist._

_"Is it over yet, man? Because we both know you're in love with Mindy, and dating other chicks to cover that up is just making you miserable. Figure your shit out, Danny. Mindy's still in love with you, but if you don't do something, I'm gonna hook her up with every dude I know until she's over you. And I know a lot of dudes."_

Danny lays his hand flat against Mindy's office door. He sighs, deep and heavy, as if he could release the fight and the regret of dating Sally in that one exhale. He pushes the door open, expecting to find her blasting One Direction in her earbuds and filling out paperwork.

But her office is empty, and it's a mess- charts stacked haphazardly on her desk, a half eaten box of saltine crackers sitting in an open drawer, empty cans of club soda in her trashcan. There's a pair of slippers peeking out from under her desk.

Danny feels a ball of guilt in his chest at the obvious signs of sickness. He'd heard Peter grumbling about Mindy having the flu a couple weeks ago, but she'd come back to work since then. He had never known Mindy Lahiri to suffer in silence, but here she was, taking on a full workload and obviously feeling like crap, with no one the wiser.

So much for being observant, he thinks, straightening a chart that's about to fall off the pile. He'd been so caught up in himself, in trying to justify dumping Mindy by moving on to Sally, that he'd neglected the very reason he broke it off- so that they'd always be friends.

At least, that's what he'd told Mindy.

_"It's a bunch of garbage. That's what guys say, that's what cowards say when they want to get out of something but they still want to seem nice."_

She'd hit the nail on the head- he was a coward. He'd panicked, because if other people knew about him and Mindy, then it was real, and if it was real then he could lose her. He'd fallen for Mindy in these little stages- countless nights watching trashy TV in the hospital lounge, arguing over lunch, conspiring against Jeremy- but in that week they were together, he'd felt more for her then he'd felt in the entirety of his marriage. If she already had this much of him, how much damage would there be when she left? Because in Danny's experience, they always left.

Danny groans at his melodramatic internal monologue, banging his head against the wall in Mindy's office. "I am an idiot. I am an emotionally stunted, selfish idiot." The silence in the office seemed to agree with him.

Why did he expect Mindy to be like all the rest when at every turn, she'd defied every one of his expectations? She was brilliant and a little bit crazy. She was reckless in so many ways, and she was most uninhibited in how she loved- fiercely and without reservation.

"I am..." Danny whispers. "I am in love with..." He laughs once at his own reticence and the way his voice cracks, years of training himself to withhold emotion in full force. "I am in love with Mindy Lahiri." There's no sound besides his own breathing, the thrum of his heart and the hum of the furnace. The silent office accepts his declaration without comment.

 _Now_ , he thinks, _I only have to convince Mindy what I just told her bookcase._

_Only? With Mindy, few things are ever that simple._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fic I've ever written, and was motivated to do so by the angst of Be Cool and the weeks that followed.  
> I know we're all living in the shiny bubble of the finale, but hopefully this still works!  
> Feedback is always appreciated :)  
> Come hang out on tumblr- @ leftoflovely for a lot of feelings about a lot of different tv shows.


	2. Chapter 2

Mindy stares at the word PREGNANT for ten minutes. It doesn't change, and she doesn't really expect it to, but she wants to be sure.

She wants to be so sure that she goes out and buys four more pregnancy tests, each a different brand. An hour later and there's five different sticks lined up on her bathroom counter: PREGNANT, a plus sign, two lines, a smiley face and YES.

She calls Gwen.

"Sweetie, I can't talk right now. Riley just got out of the bath and she's insisting on two bedtime stories tonight, and I..."

"Gwen."

"...just want to clean the kitchen and go to bed, and Carl's so obsessed with college basketball he's basically useless..."

"GWEN!"

"What!"

"I think I'm pregnant."

 

Gwen's silent for at least ten seconds.

 

"CARL!"

Mindy holds the phone away from her ear as Gwen yells at her husband.

"Carl, please put Riley to bed, I need to go see Mindy. Do NOT argue with me, Carl! No.... Yes! Of course it is! Sweetie, why do you think we have DVR? Okay... Mindy? I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Mindy lines up the tests on a paper towel on her coffee table, vaguely amused that she's acting the same way she tells her patients not to act. Overanalyzing, second-guessing and generally freaking out. If it gets out that she took five pregnancy tests at once, she'll never hear the end of it from any of them, especially...

 

Danny.

 

Mindy doesn't know how to wrap her mind around the idea that not only is she pregnant-- not only is she currently making a person in her uterus, but that person is made up of 50% beer-swilling, profusely-sweating, stubbornly opinionated Castellano DNA.

She lightly places her hands on her stomach-- a gesture she's seen a thousand times in the office, but until now she reserved for all-you-can-eat day at the taco truck down the street-- and focuses her human-creating energy on her belly button.

"Please have the good sense to inherit my sweat glands."

There's no response, and Mindy stares at her stomach for several more moments until the awe she feels starts to swirl with darker, more complicated emotions.

She's happy, scared, excited, anxious and a little sad, and she doesn't know how to address any of it, so she wraps herself in an afghan burrito, turns on Real Housewives of New Jersey and waits for Gwen to get there.

Fifteen minutes later, Gwen knocks on her door.

"I know you have a key, so why are you making me..."

Except it's not Gwen, it's Danny, carrying a paper bag with celery sticking out of the top, smiling at her tentatively and Mindy is pretty sure she's hallucinating or having a heart attack or both.

"Hey. Can I come in?"

 

 

* * *

  


Growing up in an Italian family meant that when anything significant happens, you give food. Sick? Getting married? Having a baby? Moving? Someone died? Have another drink and here's a weeks worth of chicken cacciatore.

So when Danny found himself in a tiny grocery store around the corner from Mindy's apartment, buying the ingredients for homemade chicken noodle soup, it was a combination of the Castellano upbringing, genuine concern and wanting to show Mindy how much he cared for her. Maybe it was the beginning of a very long _I'm sorry._

He realizes that it's a lot easier to articulate all this in his head than out loud when Mindy opens her door cocooned in a blanket, face slightly flushed, eyes bright. She was expecting someone else, and when she sees him, her eyes go wide and she gasps, just slightly, at the shock.

Danny feels himself smile. Mindy is so transparent, and he's missed it in the past weeks. She's been all tight smiles and averted glances ever since he left her, crying, after Morgan's 'housewarming' party. The shock on her face is more honest than anything he's seen since.

"Hey. Can I come in?"

She doesn't say anything for a couple seconds, and he waits.

"What... Danny, why are you here?"

"I heard you were still sick, so I bought some stuff to make soup. That stuff from the can, Min, it's crap, it's probably just making you sicker."

"Yea, that's... not likely at this point. Danny, why are you here?"

"I told you, the sodium in that stuff's insane, mine's better, it has healing powers. Magic Castellano chicken noodle soup."

On cue, her stomach grumbles, and she hushes it. Danny's smile widens for just a second.

"Danny. You broke up with me, or whatever, because we never actually dated, but you ended things! You broke my heart and you left and you started dating Sally. Heartbreaking ex-not-boyfriends don't get to make me soup."

"How about guys who really, really screwed up and want to talk to you about it? You can say nothing or you can yell at me for the next hour, but just let me make you soup, Mindy, please."

His thumb gently brushes her forehead, almost like she's a child, and for once she's the one who's warm- whether from her blanket fortress or illness, Mindy's skin is hot against his palm. A tremor runs through her at his touch, and he can barely feel it, but it gives him hope.

"Please," he repeats and takes a step forward.

"Danny, it's really not a good time, if you could just... come back, my apartment's really messy, I'm contagious, Gwen's coming over, you could die..."

He can tell she's intent on keeping him outside, which is fair, considering all that he's put her through. He'll leave the groceries and come back tomorrow, it's Saturday and she can't possibly resist the allure of soup all day.

"I'll leave these here, okay? But I'm coming back tomorrow, because you're saying no but your stomach is saying yes."

He slides past her as she tries to grab the bag out of his hands, and walks over to the counter, ignoring her protests.

Mindy's all but running towards the living room, haphazardly unraveling her blanket and throwing it over the coffee table-- sure, he's a neat freak, but does she really think he cares about her dirty dishes that much?-- and she misses, whatever she's trying to hide clatters to the floor.

 

The elevator in the hallway dings, and Danny turns around at the same time that Mindy's contraband skates across the floor, spinning a few times before he can recognize what it is. Someone's at the door and he can see Mindy, hand over her mouth, staring at him as he stares at the white stick. Danny picks it up, just about to rib her about her perma-cluttered apartment when his brain catches up with his eyes.

The tiny letters could be in Japanese for how much he understands them in the first fifteen seconds.

PREGNANT.

* * *

 

Danny is silent.

Mindy is silent.

Gwen is slowly backing down the hallway, trying to avoid making any noise, and the sound of a door shutting breaks the quiet- she took the stairs. Mindy's phone buzzes, but she's focused on Danny, who is focused on the little white pregnancy test in his hand.

 _It wasn't supposed to go like this_ , she thinks. Mindy doesn't know how it was supposed to go, but this feels like the equivalent of dumping a Gatorade bucket down Danny's neck without warning, like they did the two times she's paid attention to the Super Bowl.

He finally looks at her, eyes wide, and he looks more vulnerable than she's ever seen him. The Danny Castellano she knows is always in control, always a little guarded, but in this moment it feels like every wall he's put between them is down.

He opens his mouth, but for what must be the first time in the entire time Mindy's known him, Danny is speechless. She's sure he has plenty to say, but the shock has clearly cut off the communication between his brain and his lips. He just stands there, staring at her, gripping the pregnancy test something fierce, and the flimsy tip of the applicator snaps under his fingers.

They both startle, and Danny looks at his fingers, then back at Mindy.

"It's wet," he says dumbly, and if it were anyone else, she'd laugh.

"I know, Danny. I peed on it like an hour ago."

She walks towards him, hands in front of her, and gently guides him to the couch. She takes the broken test from him, sets it next to its duplicates and then perches on the coffee table, next to the pile of pregnancy tests, opposite Danny. Her right knee is inches from his left and she stares at it for a second before looking up. She needs to be brave for this.

She looks up and Danny's staring at the jumbled pile on the coffee table, his fingers worrying the smooth skin of his wrist. She takes a breath, still not sure how to start, and-

"It's mine, right? The- the baby- it's mine?"

She exhales, relieved, and meets his eyes.

"Yes, it's yours." Mindy's fingers are twitching to take his hand, to twine their fingers together for some sort of reassurance, but she laces her hands in her lap instead.

"How... why... how long have you known?"

"Like, two hours. I've been barfing almost every day for the past two weeks, though, so I had an inkling... That I was maybe trying to ignore."

She's staring at her hands again, and looks up as Danny wraps his hand around hers.

"Why would you ignore it? Do you- do you not want it?"

Mindy stares at him, in shock again, at his eyes that are flashing confusion and hurt and before she can respond-

"Cause I will do everything for this baby, Mindy. Every diaper change, every feeding, every scraped knee, every-"

He's talking fast, a little desperate, and she pushes his hand away to stand up. _  
_

"Danny, stop! Just stop. Of course I'm keeping this baby, you idiot, you couldn't take this baby from me for all Gucci sunglasses and mai tais in the world. As of two hours and fifteen minutes ago, this little person taking over my uterus became the most important thing in the universe to me."

Danny's standing now, breathing heavy and opens his mouth to speak, but Mindy needs space, she needs to get some air, she needs to figure out where Gwen is and verbally unload on her best friend before she's even remotely ready to talk to Danny.

Danny, who was already talking about caring for this baby not ten minutes after he'd found out about it. Danny, who was wearing a button down with the sleeves rolled up and _was it normal to be this turned on by forearms?_ Danny, who broke her heart and was dating a slender redhead named Sally and _why was he bringing her soup when he had Sally?_

Gwen. She needed to find Gwen and put at least two hundred feet between her hormonal-riddled body and Danny's forearms of steel.

She cuts off Danny, again, because she needs to escape before he starts talking and either breaks her heart or melts her with more talk of taking care of this- their- baby.

"I am going to go find Gwen," she says, loudly, and puts a finger up when he starts to talk again.

"And I hope you're here when I get back, because I want to talk about this with you, but I also know that my brain is going to literally explode if I try to form a coherent sentence at you right now, which I've heard is generally not good for baby."

She glances at the clock, which is two hours fast, and back at Danny, who is blessedly quiet.

"I'll be back in an hour, and I really hope you're still here, Danny. If not..."

She shrugs her shoulders, trying to downplay the ache she feels at the thought of coming back to an empty apartment.

"If not, the ball's in your basket."

The corner of his mouth twitches, just slightly, and she grumbles.

"Court, damnit, the ball's in your court."

With that, Mindy grabs her phone, drapes a jacket over her arm and walks out the door, praying that Gwen-- wherever she is-- has some clarity and confidence to share-- and she'd be okay with a large plate of cheese fries, too.

Damn hormones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, darlings!   
> Hopeful, right? We're inching towards hopeful and warm'n'fuzzies, yes?  
> Thank you for all the kind words and encouragement on the last chapter-- they mean more than I can tell you in twelve-point type. Just know that each comment, kudo, like and reblog is reciprocated with a giant hug (or a high-five, if you're into that. The highest of fives.)  
> I hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it. 
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr @ leftoflovely - it's a jumbled mess of fandoms and feelings, but I promise you'll enjoy the stay. (I cannot be held responsible for the sheer amount of Bucky Barnes on my blog lately. Complaints can be directed towards TWS writers and Sebastian Stan's face.)


	3. Chapter 3

It takes Danny approximately ten minutes to realize that he’s still staring at the front door.

_Mindy is pregnant._

She had left, needing space but asking him to stay, which was probably a wise decision for both of them, because if she’d let Danny keep talking, he probably would’ve gotten down on one knee and-- 

Danny scrubs his hands over his face, trying to find some control over his thought process. Two days ago he’d thought that breaking up with Mindy was the right decision, two hours ago he’d realized that he was in love with her and twenty minutes ago he found out he was going to be a dad. He needed some breathing room before jumping into any more life-altering decisions.

He turns around, eyes lighting on the abandoned groceries on the counter, and makes up his mind—Danny Castellano might have the communication skills of a twelve year old, but he can sure as hell make chicken noodle soup. If only it was possible to communicate in food,  _I love you_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I’m never going to leave you_ tucked quietly into breakfasts eaten in a hurry and extravagant anniversary dinners.

He really, really wants anniversary dinners with Mindy.

He falls in to a familiar rhythm in her kitchen, pulling out pans and knives, chopping vegetables and seasoning stock, the routine of cooking calming his mind and allowing his thoughts to untangle.

Danny hadn’t realized how much he wanted to be a dad until the option was taken away- Christina had assumed his silence on the subject meant acquiescence to whatever she wanted, and he remembered the exact moment he overheard Christina telling her mom that she and Danny were never having children.

_“We’re both working adults, Mom, when would we have the time? Danny deals with enough of that every day, and I certainly don’t want to spend nine months as an incubator.”_

It had felt like a punch in the gut, and it was probably the beginning of the pile of resentment, miscommunication and silence that lead to their divorce.

He hadn’t put much thought into it since then, but once in a while—when a patient had that blissfully happy look while holding a newborn, or when he saw Mets onesies on sale—he felt a tug in his chest for something more.

In a lot of ways, Danny had already been a father—he’d raised Richie as best as he could, taught him how to be a man when Danny didn’t know what that was himself. Danny was thankful he’d been there to shield Richie from the harsh reality of being your own parent, but he wanted more than that.

He wanted to fill in the cracks of the childhood he never had— baseball games and first days of school, Christmas dinners with laughter instead of cold silence. He wanted to know what it was like to get it right.

Admittedly, he’d done a crap job of getting it right with Mindy. Falling for his best friend had been the easiest thing in the world, and by the time his emotional baggage caught up with him, he was already in too deep—goofy smiles and holding her hand on the couch, letting her overload his DVR with Top Model and allowing her cold toes to creep under his legs in the night.

But accepting that he’d fallen for Mindy was the emotional equivalent of swimming in the open ocean—an unacceptable risk. It was too vast, too uncontrollable, and there was a very real possibility it would swallow him whole.

So he bolted, because the pain now would be much less severe than the pain later. He ran from ocean of possibility with Mindy straight to the nearest puddle he could find—Sally. Sally Prentice was safe, because he could see exactly how far things would go. He could measure the limits of their relationship and he could spend time with her knowing that if things went south, the worst he’d feel is a little uncomfortable—soggy shoes and stained trousers—but still standing. His feelings for Mindy were like the pull of a tide, and if he let himself go, there was a very real possibility he’d get pulled under.

_Maybe that’s not such a bad thing._

Danny takes a shaky breath and for just a moment lets himself imagine being pulled in by the force of nature that was Mindy Lahiri. He knows that a relationship with his kid was not contingent upon a relationship with Mindy, that they could co-parent without being together—theoretically, that was possible. But in reality, Danny couldn’t imagine it. It felt wrong, like ill-fitting puzzle pieces. He wanted Mindy to be his family, not just someone who happened to give birth to his child. He wanted a life with her—to wake up every morning in the same bed, to take her to ball games knowing that he’d spend the following weekend at a sample sale in exchange. He wanted to fight over which place to order take-out from or why their baby didn’t need five middle names. He wanted a life with Mindy, and everything—good and bad—that came with it.

Danny startles, just slightly, as the soup starts to boil over and the stovetop hisses. He switches the heat to low, loads the dishwasher and stands in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next. He’s definitely waiting for Mindy to come back—hopefully his words will come out with more coherence this time around—but staring at the walls with so many unknowns bouncing around his brain sounds like a recipe for _panic._ Maybe there’s still… yes, there’s still a stash of beer shoved at the back of her fridge from the last party she had. He grabs one, uncaps it, and falls on the couch with a huff. There’s no telling how long Mindy and Gwen will talk, but at least the cable company hadn’t let Mindy block ESPN from her subscription.

He kicks his feet up on the coffee table ( _right next to the pregnancy tests he’s going to be a father oh my god)_ and settles in to wait.

 

* * *

 

 

Finding Gwen had been the easy part.

She’d texted Mindy that she was in a coffee shop a block away, and she’d be there for an hour if Mindy needed her, and to please text her later either way. _On my way,_ Mindy types out after a few attempts, confused as to why her screen is shaking until she realizes it’s her hands, not the phone, that are moving uncontrollably.

Gwen is waiting, immersed in her phone with two large paper cups on the table in front of her, and Mindy wordlessly falls in to the seat across from her, wrapping her still-shaky hands around the warm cup. She rests her cheek against her forearm, convinced that she could fall asleep right here—maybe Gwen would be her silent sentinel and she could get just a few minutes of escape from the insanity of the past twelve hours.

Not likely.

Gwen rests her hand over Mindy’s, waiting for her to break the silence.

“You do realize this would be so much easier if you’d just agreed to get platonically married after we graduated.”

Gwen snorts and removes her hand, taking a long pull from her cup before setting it down.

“Somehow I doubt even our platonic union could have stopped you and Danny. You’ve been falling for each other since the first day he made fun of your Hello Kitty scrub cap.”

“That scrub cap is adorable, and Danny has not liked me for that long. I could barely keep him for two weeks, Gwen, before he left. He left and now I am having his kid, I am having a baby and I’m going to raise it alone and it’s going to be so screwed up, I’m probably going to drop it and it’ll have a table head and never make friends and…  _ummmffff_.”

Gwen puts her hand over Mindy’s mouth and Mindy briefly considers licking her palm, because rude.

“Breathe, okay? Take a deep breath.”

Mindy complies, rolling her eyes and exaggerating her shoulder raises, but she feels marginally calmer.

“Just start at the beginning, and we’ll figure out how to prevent baby’s potential pariah status later.”

So she does—Mindy tells her about the flu that wouldn’t stop, about realizing she hadn’t had her period since December, about missing Danny like it was a physical ache. She tells her about Danny making promises to care for the baby, to be there, every diaper change and midnight feeding and she has to stop because she wants that so badly it’s a lump in her throat.

“And then I left, and I came to find you, because this is a mess, Gwen. Is he still with Sally? He said he wanted to talk before he saw the tests, what was that about? And he _left_ , Gwen, he totally flaked out, how can I trust him now? What if he has some weird Italian-Catholic-Castellano honor code, ‘Thou must care for thine ex that thou hast impregnated.’”

Gwen cracks a smile at that. She’s been quiet the whole time, humming occasionally, gripping Mindy’s hand once. Mindy feels a wave of gratitude for her best friend, a woman who takes a cab across town without question in the middle of the night, listens to her rant and somehow knows when to cut her off. Mindy sips her now-lukewarm cocoa and waits for a response.

Gwen’s thoughtful, and she takes a moment, eyes unfocused on some middle distance. Her mouth quirks up in the corner, just a bit.

“Mindy, whatever happens with Danny, you’re going to be a great mom. You know that, right?”

Mindy feels her mouth twist involuntarily, because she doesn’t know that. She can handle babies from fertilization to delivery and a bit beyond, she can diagnose preeclampsia and deliver afterbirth like a champ, but raising a child? Making sure a tiny person grew up to be happy and functional and mostly unscathed? Mindy could barely sort out her own life, much less be responsible for someone else’s. The pressure felt like a giant hand clenching her lungs.

“You will be. It’s the hardest, scariest thing you’ll ever do, but you’re going to rock it.”

“How can you know that, Gwen? How can you know I’m not going to irrevocably mess this kid up? I barely remember to keep myself stocked with clean underwear, much less know how to raise a child.”

Gwen studies her face and shakes her head, just once.

“Because for all of your sass and sarcasm, you love people well. You don’t give up on them. At the end of the day, that’s what parenting boils down to. Love and stubbornness, and you’ve got both of those in spades.”

“Nice people call it persistence, Gwendolyn.”

Gwen flicks her wrist for using that name, smiling.

“You know I’m right. And for Danny… dude’s got enough baggage to fill a 747, but he’s crazy about you, Mindy, and he has been for a long time.”

Mindy shakes her head, the words sparking hope in her chest that's at odds with the reality she’s living in. “He left, Gwen. He flaked out.”

“It sounds like he came back.”

“You don’t know that.”

Gwen shrugs, draining the last of her cup.

“No, but neither do you. Love isn’t about finding the perfect person, it’s about finding the person who wants to stay and fight for it. Finding someone who sees all of your broken bits and still sticks around, someone who chooses to wade in to your bad habits and insecurities and fears and stays through it all? That’s pretty spectacular.”

Mindy chews her lip, mulling it over.

“He could still be with Sally.”

“Yep.”

“He could flake out again.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“It might be hard.”

“Sweetie, it’s definitely going to be hard.”

They stand up, and Mindy shoves her hand into the hoodie she grabbed—incidentally, it’s Danny’s.

“And you’re absolutely sure I can’t have this conversation via emoji’s?”

Gwen doesn’t answer, just purses her lips in a vain attempt to hide her smile and winds her arm through Mindy’s.

Mindy sighs and lets Gwen guide her to the door.

“You know, the older I get, the harder it is to distinguish my life from an episode of Real Housewives.”

“If this was Real Housewives, we would be in a bar, and that cup would’ve been filled with Kahlua.”

“Fair point.”

They walk out of the coffee shop, arms linked, and Mindy tightens her arm around Gwen’s, just for a moment. She doesn’t know if Danny’s still waiting, if he still wants her, if she still has a shot at the marriage-and-a-baby future she’s always wanted. Or baby-and-a-possible-relationship, now. But underneath the anxiety and the insecurity and the unknown, she’s kindling the tiniest flicker of hope—because whatever her future holds, there’s a 99.5 percent possibility it’s going to be all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I had a better explanation on why this took so long, but real life occasionally sucks in terms of fic-writing. I also occasionally suck in terms of fic-writing and goals and important things like that. I hope this was worth the wait, and if ya'll know anyone selling little cheerleader/anti-procrastination elves, I would greatly appreciate it. 
> 
> Your comments and kudos make me smile like a crazy person. Thank you. 
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://www.leftoflovely.tumblr.com), because feelings about fandom are less painful when shared.  
> (That's a lie, a bold-faced lie, but come say hi anyway.)


	4. Chapter 4

Gwen leaves her at the elevators with a squeeze of her hands and a smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says, and Mindy opens her mouth to protest, “—whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. Even if you end up one of those single super-moms who does a million things at once and raises her kid. It’ll be okay.”

Mindy nods, trying to smile through the torrent of nerves that are kicking around her stomach and chest and throat, exhaling shakily as the doors close and the elevator starts to rise.

She tries to take a couple of deep breaths, like all the people did in that one yoga class she went to. It doesn’t help, and her stomach twists as the doors open on her floor and she walks out.

Should she knock? No, it’s  _her apartment_ for crying out loud, of course she shouldn’t knock.

Mindy opens the door and is immediately greeted by a wave of something mouthwatering _—_ it smells like chicken and fancy herbs she can’t name and it’s the first thing in three days that hasn’t made her reflexively gag. Danny’s on the couch, the TV on a sports channel, but he jumps up as she walks in.

“Hello,” he says, formal and weird.

“Hi.”

It’s  _awkward,_ when’s the last time she felt this out of her depth around Danny?

“It, um, smells amazing.”

“Soup! Yea! It’s ready, if you’d like some.”

“That sounds good. And then… do you still want to… talk?”

Her words feel clunky and foreign.  _Maybe I can burn my mouth on the soup and avoid the talking-feeling-sharing thing_.

Danny ladles two bowls of soup, hands one to her, and sits down at the table, which is miraculously free of the usual magazine/mail pile.

“Careful, it’s really hot,” he says, and there goes the burnt-mouth plan.

They slurp soup in relative silence, and Mindy can’t remember the last time they’ve been this quiet around each other.

Bowls nearly empty, Mindy feels her nerves start to simmer.

Danny looks at her.

“So.”

“So.”

Danny flashes her a grin, and he’s nervous, she can tell—somehow, that makes this just a little easier.

“So _,_ I know this is all really sudden and out of the blue, and if you want to take a few days to think about everything I--”

“I don’t need a few days.”

Mindy narrows her eyes at the interruption, and Danny raises his eyebrows, half apologetic, half humorous.

“ _If_ you want to take a few days to think about everything, I completely understand,” she finishes.

Danny keeps smirking, still silent. Mindy rolls her eyes.

“You may speak.”

“I don’t need a few days. I’m sure.”

Because _that_ isn’t vague at all.

“You’re sure? About what?”

“This. Us. The baby.”

“You’re sure about ‘us’? What does that even mean?”

“It means I’m all in, for all of it.”

Mindy resists the urge to bang her head against the table. This conversation is a master class in why women are not the more emotionally unstable sex.

“Danny, what are you even saying? We’re not together anymore. You broke up with me.”

“I know, but—“

“We weren’t even dating publicly. We were secret dating, like a pair of twelve year olds, and you decided that was _too much to handle._ And now you want to tell me that you’re all in? Five weeks ago the thought of admitting to our co-workers that you were dating me made you sweat through your t-shirt, but now, all of a sudden, you’re all in?”

Mindy is  _pissed._ Her hands are clenched under the table, shaking a little, and she’d spent the past weeks so consumed with sadness and hurt, she never got around to being raging angry at Danny for walking out on their relationship before it could even start.

“Yes,” he says, and Mindy briefly considers throwing her spoon at his head. Instead she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and looks at him.

“No.”

“Mindy—”

“This relationship is not your personal bodega. I am not open for whatever kind of relationship you’re ready for at whatever time.”

Danny looks hurt, but not… surprised, exactly. Mindy can’t focus on his face because he’s talking again and she really,  _really_ should not inflict bodily harm on the father of her unborn child.

“…do we go from here? You have to set up an appointment, right? Are you going to keep it in the office?”

“No, I think my work life and personal life are too intertwined already. My friend Sadie just moved here and she’s trying to get new patients, so I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Do I know her?”

“No, not unless you’ve been palling around with lesbian gynecologists in Los Angeles recently.”

Danny huffs a little laugh and stands up, carrying their bowls to the kitchen. He opens her freezer and produces a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra, and Mindy feels her eyes widen instinctively.

“I’ll take that as a yes?”

Mindy hums in anticipation of the very near future. Danny sits back down, but this time he pauses before digging in, placing his hands on either side of the bowl, and looks at her. Suddenly Mindy sees Dr. Daniel Castellano sitting in her dining room.

“Why so serious, Dr. Dan? Your ice cream’s going to melt.”

He smiles but doesn’t say anything, just takes a breath. 

“I know I messed up with us, the first time around. You were right, I was a coward, and I was stupid, because I thought if I could try to… control this, or stifle what I feel for you, it wouldn’t hurt.”

His eyes are steady on hers, calm, but his hands have shifted, thumb worrying the callus that runs along his palm. She remembers how rough it felt, over her arms and waist and everywhere, and she shivers, involuntarily, and tries to focus back on Danny.

“But when I said I was all in, I meant it. I was coming over here to tell you I was sorry. And I am, Min, I’m sorry I was a jackass and an idiot and just… yea. But you-”

His voice hitches, just a little, and Mindy feels her heart hitch with it.

“You mean more to me than I know how to say, as long as you’ll have me, I’m going to prove that to you.”

Mindy stares at him. Her mind is blank, her heart is pounding, and she’s torn between wanting to cry, wanting to press her lips against his, and wanting to shut herself in her bedroom and hyperventilate for the next hour.

He waits, and she opens her mouth—

“I…”

And closes it again.

And, like a blue moon or Haley’s comet or a fifty percent off sale at Kate Spade or something else exceedingly rare, Mindy’s mind is blank. She settles on one word.

“Okay.”

With a nod, because that’s about as expressive as she can manage without exploding.

Danny smiles at her for a moment longer, eyes soft, and he stands up and gathers his things. She stands, too, and at the front door, he stops.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

She smiles and nods, and he hesitates for a moment before leaning towards her. His lips brush against her forehead, just barely, his hand slightly tangled in her hair. It’s… intimate and tender and it makes her heart hurt for reasons she can’t begin to fathom. Mindy has always associated kisses of the non-mouth variety with platonic friends and grandparents and first dates, but this is so much more than that. She feels warm, safe, cared for, and it was over as soon as it started.

Danny steps back, smiles again, and walks through the door, shutting it behind him.

Mindy stands there as he walks down the hall, as the elevator dings its arrival and the doors close, as the hum of the car recedes down the building. She keeps standing there as the city sounds coalesce into a lullaby around her, and she’s startled by a buzzing in her pocket, a text from Gwen. She’s been standing there—ten minutes? Fifteen?

Mindy sets the phone on her nightstand, text unopened, and goes through her routine—minty bite of toothpaste, warm water on skin, cool slide of cotton against her body as she slides on her pajamas. Only when she’s safely ensconced in her bed does she open the text message.

Gwen:

                        Apartment still standing?

Mindy:

                        Apartment is standing. Sanity less so.

Gwen:

                        ?????????????

Gwen:

                        Do I need to borrow Carl’s golf clubs?

Mindy:

                        NO.

Mindy:

                        Complicated, but not bad.

 

Gwen’s text bubble starts and stops several times, which drives Mindy absolutely nuts, until finally she sends it, much shorter than her type time would indicate. Damn technology.

           

Gwen:

                       Spend the night this weekend? Carl can take R to movies, we can talk and drink… orange juice.

Mindy:

                       You sure?

Gwen:

                       YES.

 

Mindy knew that Gwen usually pretty protective of the time she got to spend with her husband and daughter in the same place.

 

Mindy:

                         Bringing sparkle nail polish and every Meg Ryan movie ever.

Gwen:

                         Only the ones with kissing. 

 

Mindy smiles and rolls over, burying herself further in the mountain of pillows on her bed. She loves Gwen for knowing what to say and what she needs before she does. Mindy doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, how they’re going to tell people, what to make of Danny’s words and the way the make her throat tighten up and her heart hurt, in kind of a good way.

She doesn’t know how to be a parent and feels vaguely terrified of the changes that are facing her in the coming days and weeks.

It feels like she doesn’t know  _anything,_ but for tonight, she snuggles down under a slightly suffocating amount of blankets, and she lets tomorrow worry about itself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's aliiiiive!   
> I know, I know. It's been inexcusably long since I updated this, and I don't have any excuses, or promises, or anything.   
> Thank you for your comments and kudos, even like, four months after the fact. Ya'll are actual beams of sunshine powering my heart.   
> Again, I'm not going to make commitments or promises about updates, but I finally have an outline (oh, foolish past Katie, who though she could just write something off the top of her head...), which will hopefully speed this process up.   
> I will tell you that I went back multiple times to reread the comments you guys left, and they brightened some otherwise crappy days. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 
> 
> While writing this I felt a little anxious that I'm writing Mindy OOC, because honestly, I'm not one for writing overt sexual references, which I know are pretty common on the show. But then I realized that I don't really care-- but if you do, heads up, this is probably how it's going to be from here on out. Abandon ship now. 
> 
> Come hang out on tumblr, because I like you and I like terrible, wonderful feelings ya'll give me about fandom.


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